Peter Hoflich

This week we had an amazing journey to Indonesia, where we saw the Mount Bromo volcano that is near Surabaya, and also several sights around Jogjakarta. It was amazing!!

First of all, we had a nearly-full weekend at home before we left. On Saturday we did a few errands, on Sunday we woke up at 7:00, did stuff, got ready, took a cab at 11:00 AM, jumped in a plane bound for Surabaya in Indonesia (the eastern tip of Java island, actually) at 1:30, flew for two hours, got there at 2:30 PM local time, a driver was there to pick us up, and off we went into the hills. Talk about a civilized way to travel! We drove into the night, got to a village hostel at around 8:00 PM, had some dinner and went to sleep. On Monday morning we woke up at 3:30 AM for our 4:00 AM pick-up (we got up early nearly every day on the trip… but usually not that early!!), a jeep took us across rough terrain and some steep roads to a wonderful lookout point. Although it was still dark out, it was slowly filling up with tourists and fully-kitted cameramen, including a few urban warriors with the full outdoor kit (jackets made with special materials, head-mounted lamps, strobing power flashlights). Nice. The sun came up, and we got our first view of the volcano and the valley below, with its sea of clouds. Perfect! Loved it. Wandered around there for a while, went downhill, got an even better view of the valley, went downhill some more to another spot where we hiked up a hill and got another angle of the volcanic plateau. There we discovered a Spanish backpacker who had slept there in a tent overnight and was happy to meet energetic fellow-travellers. Then on to the sand sea, where we walked past the nice temple and on up the slope of the great old crater for a look into the scary mouth of hell – a real live volcano!! Wow!!!!! It was a beautiful morning and we walked around for a while, then jumped in the jeep to see a beautiful savannah, before returning – quite tired – to the hostel. Checked out, drove to the city of Surabaya, drove in circles for an hour before we found our Novotel. Checked in, chilled out, hung out there for a while, went to sleep early.

On Tuesday we woke up early and headed for the train station for our ride from Surabaya to Jogjakarta (also known as Yogyakarta and Yogya), which was good fun. Ate breakfast at the Surabaya station Dunkin’ Donuts, marveled at the full band that set up to play in the waiting area, before getting to our seats. Nice, comfortable, inexpensive. Nice scenery from the windows. Got to Jogjakarta where another driver was waiting for us to take us to our accommodation at Rumah Tembi (also called Tembi Rumah Budaya, a cultural centre and heritage gallery). The proprietors took us to the room that we’d booked, but we found it to be a bit small; the staff offered to trade us into a larger cottage at no extra charge; sensing a con, we agreed to look at the second place, a large, dark, warehouse-like chamber that had a bit of charm, but was very roomy and was also close to Rumah Tembi’s small pool. We decided to go for that one, and it was a good decision. While it was dark, it had a lot of character, and when we opened up both doors a nice breeze flowed through. Lovely! There was a bird in a cage perched in front, lots of water, plenty of plants, and just a step away from the reception/restaurant. We had hoped to take a 2-hour gamelan course, but we found out that the gamelan lessons had to be cancelled because the instructor had a performance elsewhere. Rip-off!! Oh well… Had some lunch, took a swim, Zen did his homework, and it began to rain; no bicycle riding. We had afternoon tea, and chilled out. Went for a little walk, had dinner, a beer, looked at the museum and its many interesting pieces, a huge short sword collection, a modern art gallery, and took in a gamelan performance that was happening. Nice. Went to sleep early, as the next morning there was a 6:00 AM start to Borobudur and Dieng Plateau.

On Wednesday, our driver, Pak Agus arrived at 6:00 AM and we went driving off to Borobudur. We had a nice walk around the ruins of the 1200-year-old Buddhist temple, the largest Buddhist temple in the world. I’d like to say something to describe the visit, but pictures really tell it all – a magnificent pyramid on a jungle hill top with beautiful views, great stone work, and an interesting collection of tourists scrabbling all over it. After that we went off to the next town, where we visited friends of a colleague at their home, had tea, snacks and lunch, then started off on our drive to the beautiful Dieng Plateau. The ride up there was grueling, as the road snaked up and up. It was tough, but once we got there we knew it was worth it – a glorious plain feeling, wonderful views of terraced vegetable fields, and glorious sun everywhere. We stopped at one very nice place and took photos, then travelled on to a sulfurous volcanic bog. At that point I felt very cold, so I put on my sweater. I felt weak and couldn’t walk well and knew that I had become pretty sick. Up to that point I was constipated 3.5 days, but soon I had the runs and it all came out. Nice… but feeling sick. We skipped a stop at the “colour lake” and headed back, stopping for a short while at a very nice lookout point. Got back to the hotel at 8:00 PM, had some dinner, and went to sleep.

On Thursday I was too weak to do anything, despite 11 hours sleep, but after a small breakfast and some more sleep I felt much better. We cancelled our program for that day, and occupied ourselves with changing hotels from Rumah Tembi to the Hotel Phoenix, a classy European-style hotel in town. The environment there was less nice, but it was gorgeous! They tried to “upgrade” us to a suite, but sensing another con we noticed that the balcony was box-like, blocked by a wall rather than the airy open grill that the neighboring rooms used, so we requested to be downgraded back to a regular room. The one we got was as far away from the reception as you can get, but it was still a nice room with a cool balcony and we felt very comfortable there. Nice! Zen especially loved watching cartoons such as Phineas and Ferb, Iggy and the Cockroaches, Cinderella, etc. Had a big lunch (burger), then didn’t do much until the evening when we explored Malioboro Street, the local shopping drag. Nothing inspiring in any of the stores, and we were tired and weak, so we headed home by bicycle rickshaw, quite nice.

On Friday we had an excursion to the seaside planned, which was good fun. Got there, had some tea, took a horse cart along the beach in one direction as far as it would go (to the cliff), walked back, splashed our feet in the Indian Ocean, saw a surfer (one), some fishermen, villagers, peddlers mendicants, and a sad old lady. Had a nice tea, hung out, went off to the fish market to pick some fish for lunch, had that cooked up in a nice cooking hut at the edge of town along a strange little road, then went up into the hills to a village to meet one of the villages, a friend of my colleague. He took us off to see some caves that the Japanese army had dug from 1942-1945 when they occupied Java. Strangely well-maintained and tidy. Found a great lookout, had a nice stroll, went through the village, had refreshing coconuts, fed the goats, and went off to see the sunset. Like Mount Bromo’s sunrise, there were low clouds, so although it had been a sunny day with blue skies, we didn’t see a true sunset, with the sun slowly shrinking as it approached the horizon until it was blocked by clouds. No matter, it was a beautiful spot. We went back to the hotel, had a swim. Dinner – McDonalds!

Saturday we mainly did errands in town – money changing, buying souvenirs, some batik shirts for me (see the last two photos), some medicine for Naoko, a haircut for me from an 83-year old barber who has run a roadside barbershop for 25 years, and a tour of the sights of Kraton district, then off to a big old castle-like European restaurant in the beautiful hills around Merati volcano, and a nice museum for the local royal family. Fun! The highlight of the day was going of to Prambangan temple where they have a theatre that stages the Ramayana Indonesian ballet and song cycle, a very beautiful retelling of an ancient Hindu myth. Stunning.

Sunday we had to fly off early, so we went to the airport at 5:30 AM, had some local tarts for breakfast with our coffee and tea, then flying off to Singapore. A very small international departure area of Jogjakarta Airport, but nice enough. We walked from the departure gate to our airplane, a first for me, even though it was only about 100 metros. Somehow we were bumped up to the “premier” seats at the front of the plane, which was nice – and a bit unusual to be “bumped up” on a budget airline flight. And so we were the first to get off the airplane… and into another Singapore-side security screening with x-rays for the baggage and a nice long pat-down for me. Welcome to Singapore – you don’t get this on flights from Jakarta.

Sunday afternoon we chilled out, but I kept busy unpacking and dealing with my 600+ photos. Zen played guitar and did homework.

Soundtrack for the trip: The Eagles, Hotel California.

Here are some nice photos of the visit, enjoy.

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Volume 1 – In the 1970s, Jack Kirby left Marvel and went to DC, where he launched the Fourth World series of stories, introducing Darkseid and the New Gods. Seemingly every issue he’d introduce some sort of new super-powered creature. Unfortunately, he’s also drawn into the Superman world, and he draws the lame Jimmy Olson comic title, which Supes comes into, and brings with him the regular Superman artist to keep things sane. I’ll never understand Jimmy Olsen’s appeal, and how biker gangs will suddenly want to appoint him their leader and follow his every command (?!?!). Happily, however, there are a few two-page spreads, including one right at the start of the book! There are great hippy communes, like that of the Outsiders and the Hairies, and Superman himself even starts spouting hippy lingo, like “I can’t play your scene. It’s for real, brother! Only it stands for peace – something you should dig — but fast!” There are crazy races, fantastic vehicles, weird subplots about clones and genetic manipulation, evil media moguls, strange para-demons, a green kryptonite-laden Jimmy Olson clone giant (?!?!), mini-soldier clones, pink gorillas, the city of New Genesis and the evil world of Apokalips, Metron’s goofy Moebius Chair, four-armed monsters, a “group-dream” console, the nefarious televangelist Glorious Godfrey, and so many other treats. Then there’s the weird world of Mister Miracle, actually a mysterious orphan called Scott Free, who has the compulsive need to use his reflexes to escape from sure death in a series of deadly traps he pointlessly sets up one after another, in private and never for an audience. Some circus performer. But there’s no time for that, since he’s always escaping some attack by demons from Apokalips, Earth gangsters, etc. Then there’s the Forever People, who can combine their powers to create Infinity Man, and who drift around saving people and fending off demons from Apokalips, Earth gangsters, etc. There’s a confrontation between Orion and Darkseid, which is interesting, and so is the introduction of the Don Rickles (?!?!) and Dark Racer (a black man on skis) characters.

There are some lines of really bad dialogue too: “Nothing can be hidden from one such as I, Scott Free! Your telephone number is known to me!” and “Hold it right there! Unless you wish to extend your stay here, you will desist from any mayhem.” Weird.

This volume has a not-good introduction by someone who starts off by saying that he never met Jack (?!?!), but the afterword is by Mark Evanier, who apprenticed with Kirby, it is a much better statement.

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Volume 2 – I love reading Jack Kirby! And while the plot lines and dialogue of his Fourth World do often come off as half-baked and immature, his artwork and visuals are full of so much inspiration, character and imagery that it can never be less than an endearing experience for a restful Sunday afternoon (or anywhere else, for that matter). The books that make up this omnibus come from four monthly comics: Forever People, The New Gods, Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olson and Mister Miracle, several titles which Kirby drew for a couple of years; the items in this collection mainly appeared in 1972. The story lines of these four titles are meant to somehow connect a bit under the “Fourth World” banner, even if it is only with common characters that share a common root – the evil world of Apocalips, the good world of New Genesis. All of the action takes place on Earth, though, as for some reason this is the chosen battlefield of Darkseid, Lord of Apocalips, and his minions (he has some sort of endame in mind – who knows what that is, though). At the start of the collection, we get the Forever People trying to save civilians trapped in Desadd’s amusement park of horrors (The Forever People are tortured there themselves, until they are released by Sonny Sumo, the anti-life guy, who’s also a seasoned gladiator!! It’s Jack Kirby, so we can’t have too many gladiators…).

It is also these early stories that we have our sole appearances of Darkseid, where we see him wander among the mortals, where we see him… smile… creepily. Meanwhile, the New Gods go investigate Inter-Gang, a group of gangsters involved with the Apocalips crowd. Oops!! They involve a gang of mortals again, tag-alongs I guess (after a while they just sorta… go home… bye, guys!). Nice. With Jimmy Olsen, Kirby combines Don Rickles with his lookalike superhero Goody Rickels for some zany antics; hard to believe that insult comedians really talked that way! Para-demons, some nonsense about explosions, and maybe the collection’s simplest stories. Orion takes on the creepy fish men, the Deep-Six, killing or otherwise defeating them, dodging the leviathan while rescuing a mortal family, and zooming off with Lightspeed into the galaxy on an incredible space buggy to hit infinity. Jimmy Olsen and Superman explore the vampire aliens of Transylvane, actually a secret planet of mini-people hidden away in a cemetery by an Earth-born mad scientist (?!?!?… this probably says more about the average reader of this title than it does about Jack’s tastes…); this one is pretty cool, as it has sexy vampire bit victims… and hey – it’s vampires! Battles, clues, mist, monsters, gargoyles, strange mini-planets, gangsters, proto-Miller stuff… it’s all there! One of the tales is of a crazy band of musicians from Apocalips that sort of goes nuts, they investigate the Loch Trevor monster (Loch Ness?), there are sexy secret agents, weird little mini-soldiers, as well as the just-plain-horrible Newsboy Legion (groooooan!!!).

The Mister Miracle stories are an enigma; while Scott Free has the least powers – he’s an escape artist constantly testing out ridiculously elaborate escapes from things like a rocket chair, buzz saw along the groin area, trapped in a vase and plummeting from a 50 storey height, many others – his past, his character, his funky costume and his alliance with the beautiful Big Barda somehow make him the most interesting of the characters in the book. Here we see him taking on an evil torturer who puts him into a spiked iron maiden, and climbing up the halls of death, escaping from a wicked human centrifuge, a cannon, a treadmill of death, and all sorts of other crazy stuff; there are also two stories of his youth, when Granny Goodness and the slave pits of Apocalips were his world. At his country estate he has by his side Big Barda, inspired by Lainie Kazan according to the endnotes, and a wicked ally for blasting armies of interlopers, squads of assassins, or taking baths in the middle of a book. Nice, very nice.

Incidentally, here are some images of Lainie Kazan, Kirby’s inspiration for Big Barda:

The blending of the four series in staggered format may make it difficult to follow at times, but it also shows us how they unfolded for fans at the time.

Here are some of Volume 2′s awesome visuals!!

This pic is so great, and I love the text! “Looks kinda pretty though — passion-red flams against undulating cyclopean black smoke! A marvel of contrast!” This guy wrote such great stuff on top of drawing all those amazing plateaux?!?! Stunning…

Classic dialogue:
- Mister Dubbilex!! You’re weird!!
- It seems you’re correct, Miss Dean!
Who cares that SUPERMAN is also in the frame…

This image has been praised as one of the best Jack Kirby illustrations ever – I agree!!

How did they get away with this in 1972????

Jack Kirby’s Fourth World Omnibus Volume 3 – The story of Kirby’s Fourth World continues in Volume 3. This one is great, as it has plenty of those 2-page spreads that we all love so much (see below). The stories are okay – there are fewer Superman or Jimmy Olsen tales now (and the one that remains, showing Olsen converted into a long-haired Kirby-esque berserker caveman, is actually very good). In the tale, the Forever People get split up and transported back in time, each to a different era (the eve of Lincoln’s assassination, ancient Rome, the conquistadors in South America, mini-tales of New Genesis and Apokalips warriors. Then there’s the Pact, a classic tale of a young All Father, and the swapping of a young Orion and a baby Scott Free between All Father and Darkseid. Crazy stuff! Then there’s Mister Miracle’s attack with Big Barda on Apokalips, tales of a teen-aged Scott Free fighting para-demons, then purple chair-eating monsters that befriend Jimmy Olsen and his stupid team of idiot reporters. Superman’s adventure in Super Town is, of course, super-weird, as is the discovery of the anti-life equation by a conceited billionaire called Bates, with his weird cult creatures (that look like Dr Satan from Rob Zombie’s “House of 1,000 Corpses”). Then there’s the tale of detective Turpin, who battles fist-to-fist with a warrior of Apokalips, the berserker Kalibak, until he’s a battered pulp. One of the better stories brings in Big Barda’s troupe of female pirates, the Harpies, fantastic (see one of the two-page spreads below for more info). Mister Miracle’s battle inside his brain with The Lump is quite trippy too, especially his method of defeating the monster. Then there’s the Forever People’s encounter with Deadman (and a nice episode of Beautiful Dreamer changing into a new dress – sexxee!), fighting a reanimated Frankenstein’s creature. Kirby invents a new civilisation, the Bugs of New Genesis, and how one of them escapes and goes to Earth. Another tale tells of Himon, who trains Scott Free and other urchins in Apokalips, it’s an odd tale – Himon cannot be destroyed, he escapes every execution. Nutty. The Forever People and Deadman face the Scavengers, including the man who ordered Deadman’s death (a revenge tale). Finally, there’s another battle with Mantis.

Marvel Visionaries Jack Kirby – Great collection of old Jack Kirby stories, starting in 1941, with an issue of Red Raven Comics that cost 10 cents. The art is not that great, trippy monster machine/space god stuff that Kirby did in the 1970s, but it does show strange tales of gods, in this case a mature tale of the Greek gods, showing Zeus pledging Mercury to go to earth during World War II and confuse men by breaking down their ability to communicate, i.e. intercepting the orders that generals send to their soldiers and rendering them ineffective, interfering in the plans of Rudolph Hendler’s German armies (Hendler/Hitler is actually Pluto/Satan in disguise). Then there’s the origin of Captain America, who was recruited/created to stop spies and saboteurs hindering America’s war effort. There are short tales from The Yellow Claw, The Incredible Hulk and Spiderman, before there’s the classic tale of Captain America’s rescue from a block of ice in the Arctic circle (funny how the Avengers just happened to stumble upon it during one of their routine patrols of the Arctic Ocean). An issue of The Fantastic Four is more surreal, as Reed Richards discovers some sort of anti-matter universe and explores it with The Thing (actually an imposter disguised as the thing… crazy). Then there’s a trio of great Thor stories, centering around the High Evolutionary and the knights of Wundagore and all the nutty new-men and super-beasts. Here Jane Foster leaves the picture – when Odin turns her into a goddess and she can’t take it any more, she turns her back on Thor who, conveniently, discovers that young Sif has grown up into a beautiful young goddess. There’s another Fantastic Four tale, showing a fight between the FF and the Inhumans, it’s not very exciting, nor is Captain America #200, showing the end of a conspiracy during America’s bicentennial year to turn all Americans into brainless slaves cowering in fear. Some social commentary as the Falcon muses the irony of a black man, the descendant of slaves, saving the country.

The real trippy artwork begins with The Eternals, which shows the coming of the Centennials, seven giant beings hanging out at an Aztec temple. The final tale is a strange “What If” tale: What If The Original Marvel Bullpen Had Become the Fantastic Four. My edition, which I got from the library, had about 60 pages ripped out of it. Gosh!

Recently I got a great Captain America comic book omnibus from the library. It collects about 25 old Captain America comic, mostly drawn by Jack Kirby, in one edition. It’s pretty good, and has a lot of the Sharon Carter storyline in it. One of the issues published in late 1968, where Cap fights the Trapster, I actually owned as a kid!

Here’s a particularly amusing sequence. I think the writer screwed up…

One of the title splashes is awesome. SHIELD had the best SCUBA gear, man!

Who’s that nasty villain-looking person. Could it be… Mao Zedong?

Jack Kirby’s The Demon, by Jack Kirby – It’s easy to love all things Jack Kirby, who created insanely trippy characters and adventures. The Demon is one of them, of course, and while the storyline is usually not so great (it hardly ever is with comics), the art is stunning, and the twisted demonic creations continuously mind-blowing. We are also treated to 11 funky two-page spreads of wild Kirby art throughout the 15 issues collected here, which was the entire run.

The Demon tells the tale of Jason Blood (cool name), who is the human form of Merlin’s pet demon Etrigan from the times of Camelot (there’s an “origins” story at the beginning of the first book that recounts all this). Jason Blood has lived through the ages, becoming an independently-wealthy “demonologist” when we meet him in the early Seventies, where he lives in a groovy bachelor pad crammed with priceless occult and historical artifacts (such as swords, ancient tomes, swords and, er, a little item called the philosopher’s stone!!!). Wow!

He’s also got funky friends – a Sikh mind reader/UN delegate, and a goofy advertising executive. Nice. Unfortunately the story slips around a bit too much to make sense, at times hopping from a central European kingdom right over to central Gotham City (yes, this is a DC title). Villains drift in and out, and battles are usually fairly short and decided on random factors (with The Demon always winning, of course). Merlin drifts into the book just as inexplicably as he drifts out. So… what’s his role again? This edition also includes a nice foreword by Mark Evanier, who apprenticed with Kirby and who eventually wrote the book on Kirby (literally), and I also found a couple of pretty funky single-panel drawings (shown below).

Some of the bizarre foes that The Demon/Etrigan/Jason Blood face are Morgaine Le Fey (both in the times of Camelot and twice in modern times, with her modern right-hand man/traitor Warly), Master-eye cultists who can force modern men to regress to their past selves (all the way back to neanderthal times, etc), a dragon that looks suspiciously like Fing Fang Foom, the witch Ugly Meg, the cute little white Kamara fear-monster, the Iron Duke of Trollsac, an evil Ent, Somnambula the Dream Beast, the Howler, the “Judge” of old Salem, the Hell-imp Klarion with his kitty doll Teekl (one of The Demon’s better foes, he even turns up twice), the Phantom (which rips off The Phantom Of The Opera, but sort of turns it on its head as well) and his mad lover Galatea the actress/witch, the demon Asmodon, the evil Baron Von Evilstein (he’s evil) and his faithful servant Igor (in this adventure he’s allied with a rampaging Frankenstein monster of sorts), Gargora, and a whole bunch of other unnamed geeks and creatures.

Here are some cool single shots from The Demon:

The Eternals, by Jack Kirby – The Eternals is probably one of Jack Kirby’s best creations, and in many weird ways it presages the more sophisticated recent comic book era (Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman) through its modern/mature storytelling, the kind that that Jack had always strived for but had never really been able to achieve through his disjointed Forth World series, and not even his trippier superhero fantasies – which were always ruled by some sort of superhero doctrine or another (the only recognisable Marvel superhero that appears in The Eternals is a sort-of version of The Thing).

Kirby also even sort of predicts Rick Riordan and his Percy Jackson series by tying the Olympean gods into our own modern world though real interfaces; awesome!

Of course the art it amazing. It’s the reason we read this, but unlike other stories this one is also entirely readable!

There’s incredibly fast-moving drama. There’s the saga of the three races (Human, Eternal, Deviant) over all the ages of man going back to the Flood, the motives of the sinister/mysterious/omni-potent god-like Celestials, the sleaze of the Deviants, the coolness of the Eternals, their intersection with the Greek legends, the war between the Eternals and the Deviants, the interaction with humans (SHIELD agents, the KGB, moles in the Kremlin, etc), the cold war situation with Soviet Russia, and all the other nonsense. Awesome!

Of course, there are plenty of strange dalliances along the way – witness the silliness with the illusion-weaving Sprite – but all is well. Hey, it’s Jack Kirby!!!

Jack Kirby’s Captain America – It’s stunning to get all these issues in a pack like this, especially considering that I once owned issue 197 of this series of Captain America 193-200 (and none of the ones before and after). It fills in some of the gaps, but is only partially fulfilling…

In the story the villains are not very apparent, very threatening, or altogether in danger of defeating Cap and his gang. The premise is scary – a mindwave device is created that drives its victims to riot (is this a reason why there were so many people movements in the 1960s?). Certainly, the “madbomb” rationalises why so many people would revolt. By 1976 the message was sinking in, and there was no taking of chances before Gerald Ford’s big outgoing-presidential party-going (Gerald Ford’s wife was, after all, Betty Ford).

In the story, Cap gets hit by the madbomb hate-riot ray, he resists it, The Falcon (Sam “Snap” Wilson) and his girl Leila also get hit, and it’s all about a lot of crazy race rivalry. Oops! But that’s how it was in 1976.

The Madbomb story sometimes leverages off of its “a riot in every population centre, but this doesn’t last forever either, and after some time Cap and Falcon find the underground lair of our fair nasties, they jump into the fray, get invovled in gladiator battles (hey, why not – it’s Marvel, it’s Jack Kirby!!!). The end is not so great, as Steve meets a guy who wants to kill his alter ego (i.e. the real Steve Rogers).

The art and colouring are really very good. The story is discontinues beyond 200, and the dialogue is from time to time very crappy, but hey – it wouldn’t be a proper comic without it!!!

Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur – Love Devil Dinosaur! There were only nine issues of the thing, but awesome they were!! Love to love this stuff!!! Jack Kirby was behind it all, drawing the images and writing the text. He took a step away from the ambitious stuff, such as the Fourth World, the New Gods, the Celestials, the Eternals, Apocolips and all that, and just went back to a dumb: unspeaking burnt-red dinosaur and his monkey companion Moon Boy (supposedly “the first human” as it says on the cover, but we soon learn otherwise) carving vast swaths of crazy narrative. Devil and Moon Boy fight other dinosaurs, other monsters, and defend the people of the valley from the hill tribes. It’s a wild journey.

Moon Boy is a bit of coward, and he admits it; yet, he’s accepted the rejection of his people (more than once) for the sake of his new friend, a dinosaur, with whom he will gladly travel space and time. Great! Moon Boy is often endangered, and yet somehow he always just managed to survive long enough for Devil Dinosaur to come rescue him. Awesome! Together they fight dinosaurs, fearsome cavemen, giant spiders, killer ants, crazy giants, freaky alien conquerors (a bizarre reprint of The Eternals/Celestials), time-travelling pits (allowing Devil Dinosaur to wreak havoc in 1976) and a strange “garden” of “Eden” with a “tree” of “knowledge”. Interesting how Kirby re-invents the Judeo-Christian creation story.

Probably the war with the aliens, with Eev, with the “tree” of knowledge, were the best parts – one story begets a thousand legends (anything Eternals will do the same – witness Thor 290-300). Bravo!!

Alien life forms commence!

We went to Marina Bay Sands and had a nice lunch with our friends Margaret and Larry. Zen was originally not supposed to come with us, but he mis-behaved (didn’t do enough homework), so we cancelled an appointment with his playmates and he hung out with the adults instead.

After meeting Margaret and Larry, the sky clouded over with the blackest storm clouds I’ve ever seen.

Wolverine Origin – I’ve always liked Wolverine, and while he may have appeared over-wrought in many of his tales, he’s still pretty cool; having Hugh Jackman’s near-perfect casting as Wolverine in the Hollywood movie versions also doesn’t hurt.

So when Marvel finally decided to do a Wolverine Origin comic, after dropping so many shadowy hints about his past, they knew they had to do a good job. They mostly come through here – great characterization, great plot twists, pretty good story, and a little bit of romantic tragedy (hey – it’s Wolverine, right?). Not sure how Wolverine’s family got this curse placed on it – there’s no witchcraft, sorcery, otherworldly powers, or mutantism going on here – nor am I sure why his first adversary is such a sadistic killer (motivation?), nor what becomes of the young man’s grandfather (something for future Origins issues?), but it is cool that Logan’s such an old guy, his natural healing factor allowing him an extra-long life.

The book’s first chapters tell the story of young James’ family, and that of the young maid Rose, and that of the groundskeeper Thomas Logan and his son Dog. It’s a tale of class, vendettas, madness and revenge, bitterness, lost love, and of violence against children and bullying, but also of young people coming of age. After a tragedy at the grand Howlett estate, young James and Rose take off for northern British Columbia where they live amongst miners and scumbags, building lives for themselves. It’s here that James turns into the Wolverine that we know – moody, damaged, and half-wild.

Ultimately, it’s the first half, and the “Wolverine among the wolves” part of the book that is the most successful, with the in-town-among-scummy-villains shenanigans that feels a bit hackneyed. Wolverine’s main opponent there is a fat bully cook called… Cookie… and an enemy that comes out of his past (as always). Yes, not perfect, but pretty good.

The art – stunning.

The “What If?” comic were cheesy ponderings of alternate realities, hosted by the Watcher, probably the dullest character from Marvel Comics’ classic golden era. The stories speed through the lives of key Marvel characters (and some not-so-key characters), sometimes turning up with interesting scenarios. They occasionally also twist reality quite unpredictable – like in one alternate future, Odin has no wife so he marries… Jane Foster?!?! Crazy stuff, man…

The original stories now come in bundles of six, I’ll review the ones I’ve read here:

What If? Classic, Volume 1 – The one that kicks it all of is “What if Spider-man had joined the Fantastic Four”, and it launches not just that story, but also the concept of alternate realities (and sets the standard that the first four pages of any “What If?” comic is completely skip-able. Spiderman approaches the Fantastic Four, fights them, and then joins them. Nice. Things come to a head with an encounter with the Puppet Master and the Sub-Mariner. Not sure why this story needed to be told, although there’s at least a pleasant little twist ending. Another unnecessary tale is “What If the Hulk had the brain of Bruce Banner?”, a silly tale about… something that eventually happened for real in the Marvel Universe! Boring. The art by Herb Trimpe is better than what we get from the overly-busy Jim Craig in issue one. There’s a weird story of The Gargoyle, an ugly Russian who has a change of heart and becomes the Hulk’s friend. Huh? Banner becomes friends with Reed Richards and Charles Xavier, and events take a different course when Galactus shows up and the three brains combine as a psyho warrior called X-Man. Crazy.

“What If The Avengers Had Never Been?” is drawn by Gil Kane and goes into hyper surreal land with nutty deaths and new Iron Men. Most of the story is a depiction of a battle between the new Iron Man Legion versus the Hulk and Namor. I guess those two are pretty powerful together, because they make mince meat of the Iron Man Legion. Nice. “What If The Invaders Had Stayed Together After World War Two” is a groovy tale that doesn’t involve the Hulk! It focuses on Captain America, of course, and digs up a dozen forgotten heroes from the early days of comic books. Nice… sorta. The death of Adolf Hitler is shown, and the tale bounces all over recent political history. The Invaders fight weird robots, led by Adam-II (who?), and save John F and Robert Kennedy from some sort of yucky fate. Whatever.

Cap’s back in issue 5, “what If Captain America hadn’t vanished during World War Two” is a weird tale of battle with the Red Skull, dynamics with Bucky, a world with out Nick Fury (who is killed in Korea), and Cap and Bucky trading roles as the head of SHIELD. Okay… Here Sharon Carter falls in love with Bucky (dressed as Cap), rather than with Steve Rogers. Interesting… and a few more plot twists.

“What if the Fantastic Four had different powers?” is a bit more fun and speculative – and weird. Ben becomes a dude with bat wings, Susan gets stretchy, Johnny becomes a living metal-man (kind of like Colossus of the X-Men), and Reed is turned into… a disembodied brain. Crazy, right? It gets even crazier when they meet Doctor Doom!

These adventures contain a lot of Captain America, a lot of Hulk, and plenty of presidents!

What If? Classic, Volume 2 – Starting off, like the last one, with Spider-man, this is a three-in-one tale that speculates what would have happened if Betty Brant, Flash Thompson or John Jameson had been bitten by the radioactive spider instead of Peter Parker, who is nonetheless still involved (and at the end of one of the tales he does manage to still become Spider-man). The tales are short, fairly interesting, and give more hint at a larger message than and of the earlier “What If?” speculative stories did – that only one individual was suited for making Spider-man a hero of note and influence. Funny how in one of the stories Betty Brant gets the powers and becomes… the Amazing Spider-Girl… with the worst costume in comic history!!!

“What If the world knew Daredevil is blind?” is not one of the better tales, although it does have a nice Spider-man tie-in. Funny how Electro proves that Daredevil is blind: “all right – what colour is my costume then?” Spider-man then actually backs Electro up, making fun of the gold-red combo of the old Daredevil costumer. Ha ha… The Owl fights Daredevil, taking advantage of his blindness; Daredevil then goes to the kingdom of Liechtenbad (???) to be treated to an operation that will help him recover his eyesight at the cost of his other powers (makes sense, right?), where he fights the baron, his old classmate, now a vicious tyrant in Crusader gear with a robot army at his control (no holds barred on silliness here). This issue contains the first piss-take at the What If? silliness (this concept would be immortalized in issue 33, which is in What If? Classics volume 6, reviewed below), namely “What if the spider had been bitten by a radioactive human?” This naturally leads to titles like “The ‘mazing Man-spider”. This great hero fights animal-themed villains like King-pig (Kingpin), “Octo” Doctorpuss, the cat o’ nine tails (Doctor Octopus, with nine robot tails instead of four robot arms), the Green Gobbler (a turkey made out to look like the Green Goblin), the Incredible Hog (the Incredible Hulk), etc. That’s followed by “What If the Avengers had fought evil in the 1950s”, meaning “what if the Avengers had been formed 10 years earlier from obscure costumed heroes of that era” (kind of like the Watchmen, maybe?). This one involves an FBI agent named James Wu, Nazis (of course – must have Nazis), the Yellow Claw, and his beautiful niece Suwan. The members are 3-D Man, Gorilla-Man, Venus (yes, the goddess of love herself!!), the murderous Human Robot (re-programmed to be kind and loving – well, maybe a bit too touchy and temperamental to be really “loving”), and Uranus’ own Marvel Boy himself! WOW!!! Uhhh… who are these people, and why do we care enough about them to read about their alternative reality? Well, they’ve been assembled, and battle they must – the Yellow Claw, his evil Nazi partner Fritz, the sinister Skull-Face, the Soviet villain Electro (another Electro, obviously – but he has green skin, instead of a green costume), the Great Video (one of his abilities is “the power to kill with my prolonged stare!”) and the icy Cold Warrior. Not all that memorable… nice scene with Ike, though.

The artist also got a bit cheeky with Venus’ sheer clothing – well, it’s kind of sheer in the lower half anyway…

Probably one of the most awesome comics in all of “What If?” history is “What if Jane Foster had found the hammer of Thor”. It becomes sort of a weird treatise on intentions, outcomes, sexual roles, brothers becoming sisters (Loki’s point of view), the weird grief of a father (Odin), men marrying their son’s girlfriends, etc. Basically, Jane Foster found the trace of Thor instead of Donald Blake, and she became… Thordis. When she goes back to Olympus, everybody laughs, Loki has a great old time, and Odin grieves for the woman that his son has become (there’s also a funny scene where Fandral comes on to Thor… Thordis). But nobody can deny that Thordis does a good job fighting villains, so Jane Foster is redeemed… and so is Thordis… and and that rascally victim Thor is revived as a boy. The explanations kinda sorta make sense… which is a challenge, considering how weird the whole Don Blake saga was to begin with.

Love Thordis’ chest armour!

This one is followed with another really awesome story: “What if the original Marvel bullpen had become the Fantastic Four”, drawn and written by one of the original Marvel bullpen, the great Jack Kirby! Wow!! Sadly, the story is nonsense, but it’s cool seeing Stan Lee as stretch-o Mister Fantastic, Kirby himself as the Thing, and some others as the Human Torch and the Invisible Girl.

“What If Rick Jones had become the Hulk” is less essential, although it is pretty funny hearing the Hulk talk in a shadow of Rick’s hippy-speak. There’s some sort of nonsensical connection between Rick and the negative zone, and they try to bring Captain Marvel into the picture. The plot is complicated and silly. Oh well…

Dig the bangles, though…

What If? Classic, Volume 6 – Collecting the original series’ issues 33-38, this one includes the classic joke issue, possibly the best What If? that I ever read (it’s up there with “What If… the Avengers became the pawns of Korvak”).

What If titles has an endearing quality that is somewhat inexplicable, since they aren’t really very good – they always have that boring intro by the Watcher, they are very text-heavy, they jump around in their plot and story-telling, they are quite humorless (with the exception of the joke issue, of course), and the art is often quite sub-standard. Oh well. There seem to be altogether too many adventures starring Galactus, the Silver Surfer, or both. What If tales tend to generally show how things would have turned out badly if events hadn’t taken the course they did in the end. Some of them dwell on generic situations that are also pretty minor (“What If Yellowjacket had died”, or in other words “what if the most unpopular Marvel character had died”).

This one includes tales of the Dazzler becoming the herald of Galactus, Iron Man being stuck in the time of Arthur, Electra never being killed off by Bullseye (she and Matt lived happily ever after), the Fantastic Four as normal humans, an alternate tale of Nova (who?), tales of The Thing and Beast becoming inhuman monsters (things and beasts), and a wild tale of Daredevil, the Avengers and Captain America in… 2013?!?!

The best story is probably the one about Electra surviving, as it’s drawn by Frank Miller, but it’s also not overly complicated and seems a bit short, considering the epic tales behind it. Oh well… The Fantastic Four one is good too; while it may stun in the ordinariness of our four heroes, it does tell a convincing story of four ordinary people who can be fantastic anyway (they went out and achieved anyway!). It’s also quite competently illustrated by John Byrne.

Worst speech to the UN General Committee: “To you [opposing nations] I say this: we wills top your evil march on civilisation. We will topple your nameless dictator! The free world will be freed!” So… if the free world is not free then why call it “the free world”?

Here are some of the highlights of the edition: